Sophie Turner Says Game Of Thrones Taught Her About Sex

Seven whole seasons have gone by since 21-year-old Sophie Turner took on her role of Sansa Stark on HBO's Game of Thrones. Beyond becoming BFFs with her co-star Maisie Williams, the actress inevitably learned major life lessons as a result of the sensitive plot lines of the series. In an interview with the Sunday Times, Turner got candid about how much the show has impacted her life.

As a young teenager portraying mature content on every episode, you can imagine how much growing up she had to do every time she went through her lines. "The first time I found out about oral sex was reading the Game of Thrones script," she told the publication. "I was 13. I said, 'Wow! People do that? That's fascinating.' I guess that was my sex education. Being on Game of Thrones."

That's surely one way to learn. On top of that, she went on to reveal how much of a toll her controversial sexual assault scene from season five took on her. "Sexual assault wasn’t something that had affected me or anybody I knew, so I was pretty blasé about the whole thing," she says. "Naively so. And then I shot the scene, and in the aftermath there was this huge uproar that we would depict something like that on television. My first response was like, maybe we shouldn’t have put that on screen at all."

Then Turner began to realize how important it actually was to shed light on the issue. "The more we talk about sexual assault the better, and screw the people who are saying we shouldn’t be putting this on TV and screw the people who are saying they’re going to boycott the show because of it," she explains. "This sort of thing used to happen and it continues to happen now, and if we treat it as such a taboo and precious subject, then how are people going to have the strength to come out and feel comfortable saying that this has happened to them?"

It's clear that the show's bold content isn't just for entertainment purposes and that there's a reason behind every story. Make sure to tune in to the official season 7 premiere on July 16 and see what you can take away from the brand-new episodes.